Friday, March 18, 2016

Syria and the Kurdish Question Revisited

While Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s sudden decision to withdraw troops from Syria caught many by surprise,
it was not the only dramatic development in Syria this week. Syria’s Kurds had
a surprise of their own, or to be more specific, it was the Syrian branch of
the PKK—known as the Kurdish Democratic Union Party or the PYD—the entity in
control of the different Kurdish-majority cantons in northern Syria. It is with
the military arm of this entity, namely the Kurdish Defense Units, or YPGs,
that the United States is currently cooperating in their ongoing showdown with
the Islamic State enclaves in territories in northern Syria.

But what is the PYD up to at this
stage? Where does it stand in the ongoing conflict between the regime and
mainstream rebel group? And what do other Kurdish parties have to say?

The answer is complicated, as the
Kurds have not been united in their stands on any of the relevant issues:
starting with the anti-regime revolution and including the issue of federal
arrangements.

Indeed, the Kurds of Syria belong
to a myriad of political parties and political organizations, but the PYD has
always been the most organized and has had the greatest public support on the
ground, especially among the youth. The PYD’s relations with the Assad regime
have always been complicated. After all, their parent entity, the PKK, would
not have existed had it not been for the Assad regime support throughout the
1970s, 80s and 90s. That said, its founder, Abdallah Ocalan, would not be
languishing in Turkish prisons today had Hafiz Al-Assad not chosen to deport
him from the country to ease growing tensions with the Turks in the summer of
1998, and in the process staving off a possible military confrontation that he
had no way of surviving. Moreover, despite its support for the PKK, the Assad regime
never recognized Kurdish rights, and adopted instead a series of oppressive
tactics vis-à-vis Syria’s Kurdish population, including denying linguistic
rights, and depriving many of their citizenships.

Still, when the Revolution took
place, the two sides were on friendly terms, resulting in the PYD’s decision to
remain above the revolutionary fray remaining neutral and encouraging
neutrality among other Kurds. Eventually, in early 2013, the PYD and YPGs took
direct control of majority-Kurdish cantons in the country and prevented Kurds
from siding with the revolutionaries. The dismissive attitude of the mainstream
opposition groups towards the Kurds and their main demands—especially the idea
of adopting a federal system for the country or of at least granting Kurds
autonomy—created more sympathy among Kurds for the PYD’s political position.

The rise of the Islamic State in
the northern parts of the country, however, and the long-suspected manipulation
of some of its cells by Turkish intelligence, eventually led to several attacks
by IS against Kurdish towns and villages, and to direct clashes with YPGs and
some of their Christian and Arab allies. This played a major role in the recent
decision made by the PYD leadership to cooperate with the Russians and the
Assad regime when it came to wresting control of certain areas in north Aleppo
held by rebels. At the same time, the PYD emerged as the leading force
cooperating with the Americans in their fight against IS in the Hassakeh and
Raqqah provinces.

There is a growing popular
support of the PYD, despite continued criticism by other Kurdish parties of the
PYD’s authoritarian tactics and the PYD’s decision to deny them fair
representation in its system of governance, even as it allows participation by
the Assyrians, the Chaldeans and other Christian communities as well as some
Arab tribes living in the region under its control. The support is due to the
PYD’s ability to protect the region from IS and to drive it away from certain
towns. The Kurds—despite the fact that there are still Kurdish divisions
fighting with rebels and Kurdish parties affiliated with mainstream opposition
groups—are increasingly coming to terms with the idea that Syria as a country
is irrevocably broken, and that they need to find a solution that best works
for them.

This may not be a popular
attitude among Sunni Arabs, as represented by mainstream opposition groups,
both political and military. The regime will continue to oppose it in its
discourse, while it might ultimately benefit from a federal arrangement,
because there are those within the regime, especially Bashar Al-Assad himself,
operating under the delusion that they can somehow regain control over the
entire country. Still, the development does reflect the reality on the ground.

Considering the Kurds alienation
from both the regime and the opposition, and considering that the major threat
posed to them at this stage comes from IS and other Islamist groups who
continue to disdain the Kurds on account of their pronounced secular tendencies,
it is unsurprising that the Kurds are becoming less interested in the fate of
Syria as a whole and far more interested in their own fate.

If the PYD is more focused on
fighting IS at this stage while avoiding conflict with the few regime units
still existing on its territories, this reflects existing realities rather than
any serious pro-regime attitude; IS has long declared war against the Kurds in
Syria and Iraq, rebel groups have not sided with PYD, and regime troops in
Kurdish-majority areas continue to keep a low profile there and have in
practice accepted the de facto hegemony of PYD. Moreover, no interruption has
been reported in the regime’s financial support of these territories.

However problematic, especially
in coinciding with the peace talks in Geneva, there is nothing surprising or
irrational about the PYD declaration. Following IS declaration of the
Caliphate, this move marks the second concrete step towards the dissolution of
Syria.

Indeed, the PYD seems intent on
taking control of all territories it might “liberate” at this stage. While the
decision could be justified on the need for providing for effective governance
structures in these places to prevent their lapse in chaos, some PYD
sympathizers are already invoking history to justify the move by claiming that
these places were historically Kurdish, denoting the underlying ideological
vision.

These are dangerous precedents
indeed and tend to put the U.S. in a difficult position as it could be seen as
party to an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting Arabs. Despite the rush by the State Department to assert that it
would not recognize the PYD move, so long as the U.S. continues to rely on
PYD troops in the fight against IS, and so long as its leaders continue to
adhere to this new policy, it will be hard for the administration to distance
itself from the trend.

As things stand now, the Obama
administration, due to its policies in Syria and the region, will be seen as
having sided with the Shia against Sunnis and with Kurds against Arabs, and as
having instigated the very breakup of Syria. Indeed, it was none other than
John Kerry himself who let the cat out of the bag when he raised the possibility of partition and federal arrangement
as part of some hypothesized Plan B for Syria. With Russia now pulling out
of Syria, the U.S. may find itself blamed for any partition of the country,
soft or hard, and even if such partition took the form of a federation. In
time—and as Putin himself has hinted—Russian forces can be
redeployed to Syria in a matter of hours to take advantage of the fait accompli
that Putin himself had created, with the help of pro-Iranian Shiite militias, but
for which the United States will be principally blamed.

Go ahead, patronize me!

About Ammar

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian-American author and pro-democracy activist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.

The Delirica

The Delirica is a companion blog to the Daily Digest of Global Delirium meant to highlight certain DDGD items by publishing them as separate posts. Also, the Delirica republishes articles by Ammar that appeared on other sites since 2016. Older articles can be found on Ammar's internet archive: Ammar.World